Congrats to all Lucie fans. I still remember that Czech league final match in December when she beat Petra 7-6, 6-7, 7-5. When she's on, she's top 10 both in doubles and singles. Good luck against Serena

What an incredible week from Lucie! She was on fire! This isn't the first time that she has played this sort of amazing tennis, but this is certainly the first time that I've seen it with this type of consistency. She has put a lot of people on notice with this run in Madrid. Minus the injuries at the very end, I think that she could have even won the tournament. And yes, I really think she was playing that good.

Lucie went above and beyond the call of duty last week. She came through qualies, so she ended up playing 8 matches in 9 days -- that includes the one doubles match with Andrea. Lucie didn't have any easy matches. If the match stats are any indication, she was forced to play some really good tennis just to make it through those first two qualification matches. Next up was Peng -- ranked No.22 -- and she took her out in three sets. After she beat Shuai earlier this year in Auckland, I remember Lucie saying that she was having a hard time believing that she'd actually won the match. Well, this is now two times in a row. Next up was Petra -- ranked No.4 -- and she took her out in straight sets. They had played once before on Tour, and Lucie had lost that one in straight sets. Then came Makarova -- ranked No.41 -- who Lucie had lost to the first two times that they had played. No worries, took her out in straight sets too. Next up was Stosur who is ranked #5 in the world. Lucie had lost their only previous match, but she took this one in two close, tiebreak sets. Alas, the streak ended when facing Serena, but it was also pretty obvious to see that Lucie's physical condition had a lot to do with how this particular match turned out. Ah well, maybe next time.

Moving forward, I really wish that she was taking some time off to heal up before she played again, but at the moment it still looks as if shell play the Prague 100k this week. At any rate, her ranking shoots back up to #55 with these new points, and the story gets even better because she's got very few points to defend once we get past the French.